Early childhood education helps build a strong foundation for learning. GPE works with partner country governments to improve the quality and availability of early education for all, through cross-country exchange of best practices, increased financing and investments and the promotion of laws, policies and advocacy campaigns dedicated to…

This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global spending on education has risen significantly over the past two decades, although spending as a share of…

This study examined the social and spill-over benefits as motivating factors to investment in formal education in selected countries in Africa. The paper had three objectives, namely) to profile the key statistics of formal schooling; ii) examine the formal education and iii) link national goals of education with expectations in Ghana, Kenya and…

In most countries of the world, higher education is highly subsidized by the public sector. The subsidy is a result of the role of higher education sector on the economy and good governance of the nations. Enrolment into higher institutions of learning is quite low in Africa compare to other continents of the world due to the continent's low and…

These self-instructional resources have their origins in a workshop on the Costs and Financing of Open & Distance Learning which took place from 6-10 August 2007 in Gabarone, Botswana. The workshop was sponsored by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) with the overall aim of building capacity to plan, negotiate and manage appropriate financial…

Investment in secondary schooling in sub-Saharan Africa has been neglected over the last two decades. Emphasis on universalising primary schooling has shaped national policy and flows of international assistance to favour rapid expansion at the first level of schooling. Though there are many good reasons for this emphasis, this has resulted in…

The conjunction of development funding and educational research in Africa and the dominating role of a single agency, the World Bank, have consequences for research and educational policy: structuring of research according to agency constructs and policies, legitimation of poorly supported propositions, lack of critical review, a fixation on…

Meetings were held in Senegal in 1985, in Cote d'Ivoire in 1986, and in Zimbabwe in 1987, concerning the current state of higher education finance in Africa, the structure of unit costs, and the role of development assistance agencies and other sources of financial support. Reports are presented concerning the macroeconomic perspective, internal…

Higher education in Sub-Saharan African countries is examined. Attention is directed to the development of higher education in sub-Saharan African countries since the early 1960s, as well as criticisms currently directed at the sector, and the economic and budgetary environment for resource allocation. The labor market for African college…

This book contains papers presented at a conference focused on the subject of funding for higher education and providing comparative perspectives on, and case studies of, educational financing from around the world. After an introduction by Ernest L. Boyer, the papers and their authors are as follows: "The Costs of Higher Education: Worldwide…